The Candian Private Copying Collective has proposed a new tariff on MP3 players and memory sticks that could see the price of a 30 GB iPod kicked up an additional $75. It's not a tax, folks, it's a levy. It will already be tacked on to the price at the retail level—and that's the genius part. Future Shop is going to have to pay for it themselves, and then pass the bill on to you. That's because you're going to take that MP3 player and fill it up with all kinds of illegal, pirated music that is somehow going to put both Tom Cochrane and Nickelback into the poorhouse. Aren't you?

The CPCC is an association of composers, recording artists, publishers, and record labels. I wonder who holds most of the power out of those four? If you have lots of time on your hands, go ahead and read their proposal in its entirety right here and immerse yourself in as much legaleze as you can handle. But if you're a busy person and want to know the gist of it, just have a look at the pricing scheme.

So, after having assumed that you've read the links and know what you're talking about, I invite you to add to my list of questions that I am going to personally attempt to pose to David Baaskin, the guy they quote in the Globe and Mail article that initially tipped me off about the whole story.

So, (deep breath), here goes:

* If the levy on a CD-R is 29 cents and a CD-R contains approximately 700MB of storage space and my $40 MP3 player only holds 1 GB, why am I forced to pay $5? I could use that $5 to fill up 17 full CD-Rs with pirated music for a grand total of 11,900MB of pirated music. By that logic, a 30 GB iPod should only cost me about 13 bucks extra. Apparently, 30 GBs of pirated music on an iPod is worth $75 but 30 GBs worth of CD-Rs is tantamount to $13.

* What happens if I buy an MP3 player at a pawn shop? Am I forced to pay again?

* All of the wording in your legal documents refers to blank media. What happens if an iPod is sold with songs preloaded by the manufacturer? It is no longer a blank disc and could be used solely for promotional purposes. U2 and Apple have released an iPod pre-loaded with their own music. This is no longer a blank storage medium and is therefore not subject to the levy. Right?

* If your concern is really about the artists being compensated for their music, and all we're concerned about here is the artists, is it okay for me to just send a $75 cheque to Bryan Adams? I'll even include a picture of me listening to my brand spankin' new 30 GB iPod while rocking out to “Cuts like a knife.” Seriously, if you are as genuinely concerned with the artists as you claim to be, why can't I just cut out the middle man and send them the money directly. That's not going to happen, because the CPCC is going to want to keep a big chunk of however much is collected. Then, it's probably safe to say that the record labels themselves are going to keep another piece of it to improve the bottom line for the shareholders, after all, they lost out too. I can't mail a cheque to Oscar Peterson because the CPCC couldn't care less about Oscar Peterson, they care about their financial backers—the people who own record labels. Here's something I've known since I was nine years old and read an interview with MC Hammer on the pages of Disney Adventures: if you're a musician and you sell a CD for $25, you get to see about a dollar by the time everybody is done taking a little slice for themselves.

* If we are committing a crime not by sharing files per se, but merely by purchasing a device that can be used to play these types of files (along with many others) how is it legal to sell those items in a store? Is an agreement to pay this levy an admission of guilt? By paying the levy, has a consumer admitted culpability to file sharing? If some of the files he copies and shares wind up in Japan or Sweden or Saudi Arabia, has he broken a law? Furthermore, has the levy exonerated him from prosecution? If by paying the $75 on his 30 GB iPod, is that person entitled to 30 GB worth of pirated software, because he can safely assume that all artists have been appropriately compensated or is he entitled to as much pirated software as he can handle?

* Have you even asked yourself what Apple is going to think about this? That $75 could have been spent at the iTunes store on legitimate, legal MP3s.

* What happens if an MP3 player is given as a gift? Why should I be made to pay for what my irresponsible uncle Jim is going to download? Why should I foot the bill when he only uploads recordings of himself and his one-string bass?

* Do you not think you will feel retailer's wrath on this one?

* What happens if the phone I'm buying plays MP3s? What happens if the phone is subsidized on a contract plan? Who pays the levy?

*Your levy only seems to pertain to Digital Audio Recorders. What happens if somebody is using a portable player that doesn't record anything and merely streams audio from a nearby (or networked) computer through Wi-Fi or Bluetooth? This technology already exists. Since nothing is being recorded, apparently no levy is necessary.

* Correct me if I'm wrong, but since distributing or illegally downloading copy-written material is a crime, how can you add a supposed levy or tax onto something that is illegal?  

Those are just questions that came off the top of my head. Do you have any other questions you would like cleared up about the proposed levy? Do you think the levy is a good idea? Post a comment and let's see where the discussion goes.

Andrew Rideout